We Made It Ourselves | Mom-and-Pop Pop

There’s something comforting and delightful about a classic soda fountain. That’s what Anton Nocito thinks, and his dream is to open one in New York City. He’s starting small with homemade soda.

Last July, he took to experimenting at home with artisanal syrups — peach chamomile, cherry verbena, ginger and lime — to which he added some carbonated water for summertime sipping. Once he felt his formulas measured up, he brought them to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, for the weekly food market. So began P&H Soda and Syrup Inc.The name came from his wife, the graphic designer Erica Rothchild, whose line of food-inspired screen-printed greeting cards is called Pumpkin & Honey Bunny (a reference to the diner-robbing couple in the first/last scene of “Pulp Fiction”). She’s responsible for all the P&H flair — labels, signage and the like.

For now, the French Culinary Institute-trained chef and alumnus of the Union Square Cafe and the Modern is focused on the syrups. There are seasonal flavors like autumn’s Concord grape and warm weather’s melon, which he’ll be selling mostly to local restaurants and, for residential use, the core classics: lime, cream soda and hibiscus.

It’s easy to serve yourself a spritzer. Fill a 16-ounce glass to the top with ice, slip in 1.5 to 2 ounces of your preferred syrup and fill the rest of your cup with seltzer. (Nocito recommends this eco-conscious alternative.) Stir it up and guzzle it down.

Once you taste a tonic, you’ll find yourself imagining all sorts of vehicles for the P&H elixirs. The lime syrup, made with organic citrus from the Greenmarket, is eye-opening. In Nocito’s words, “It’s lime.” This you can imagine poured over a scoop of strawberry or even chocolate ice cream — or, if you’re so inclined, as a French-toast topper. The cream soda’s sun-dried Tahitian vanilla beans, found here, impart a light, fragrant earthiness, and make one consider drizzling that syrup over poached pears, maybe with a sprinkling of toasted almonds. The less traditional hibiscus is both floral and herbaceous. (Anise is involved.) This subtler syrup would do well on rice pudding or an unsweetened vanilla yogurt made with full-fat milk. At the Redhead, Rob Larcom mixes it in a cocktail with Absolut Ruby Red vodka, fresh-squeezed lemon juice and soda water.

The syrups are slowly making their mark. Nocito will be teaching D.I.Y. classes at the Brooklyn Kitchen, where his creations will also be available for purchase. There are more in the works — birch sarsaparilla and cola, for starters — and you’ll be able to try or buy them at the soon-to-open Brooklyn Farmacy and Soda Fountain. In the meantime, Nocito spends his days as the chef at Hotel AKA’s A Café in Midtown Manhattan, looks for books on the history of soda fountains and waits for that not-too-distant day when he opens one of his own. “It’d be great if every neighborhood had a soda fountain to go with their loved one or their kids,” he says. “I don’t want to go out and drink every night. I’m getting old.”